The oxazolidinone antibacterial agents are a novel synthetic class of antimicrobials with potent activity against a number of human and veterinary pathogens, including gram-positive aerobic bacteria such as multiply-resistant staphylococci and streptococci, anaerobic organisms such as bacteroides and clostridia species, and acid-fast organisms such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Mycobacterium avium.
However, oxazolidinones generally do not demonstrate an activity at a useful level against aerobic gram-negative organisms. Thus, the use of these oxazolidinone antibacterial agents is limited to infectious states due to gram-positive bacteria. Accordingly, it is among the objects of the present invention to provide pharmaceutical compounds, which have broader antibacterial activity including the activity against aerobic gram-negative organisms. We have now discovered that the oxazolidinones of the present invention increase the spectrum of activity to include gram-negative organisms such as Haemophilus influenza and Moraxella catarrhalis. In addition, the compounds of the present invention are excellent water soluble agents, which makes them particularly useful for IV and oral administration for the treatment of microbial infections.